Environmental Sustainability Assessment of Buildings Using Requirements in Building Energy Codes

SUMMARY To assess the environmental sustainability of buildings, a number of technological, ecological and socio-cultural factors are involved. Investigation on the existing building environmental assessment methods in the world shows that the building’s energy performance is usually the key element in the evaluation process and will constitute a significant portion of the overall assessment results. With growing interest and importance of building energy codes in many worldwide locations, it is possible to make use of the requirements in the building energy codes to support the sustainability assessment of buildings. In order to do that effectively, the nature and characteristics of the codes must be understood and the trends of code development have to be considered. This study investigates the environmental sustainability of buildings and how its assessment can be enhanced by using the requirements in the building energy codes. By examining the existing building environmental assessment schemes and the development of the building energy codes in the respective locations, it is hoped that better understanding of their interrelationship can be obtained and effective strategy to integrate them can be generated. The experience and prospects in Ho ng Kong in this area are discussed to illustrate the practical considerations in the design of the strategy. To express the assessment criteria unambiguously, a comprehensive definition of sustainability and building energy performance to suit local needs is important. Proper coordination of the requirements in the building energy codes and the environmental assessment scheme is needed. At present, many of the existing building energy codes in the world are prescriptive in nature. To provide greater design flexibility and encourage innovative design, it is important to move towards performance-based approach and consider the integrated whole building performance in the design and evaluation. To obtain these advantages in the environmental sustainability assessment of buildings, further efforts are needed to integrate the requirements of building energy codes and the performance concept into the sustainability assessment process. This will help to strengthen the technical base of and confidence with the assessment method.